Kawase Hasui
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was a Japanese artist who was one of 20th century Japan's most important and prolific printmakers. He was a prominent designer of the ''
shin-hanga was an art movement in early 20th-century Japan, during the Taishō and Shōwa periods, that revitalized the traditional '' ukiyo-e'' art rooted in the Edo and Meiji periods (17th–19th century). It maintained the traditional ''ukiyo-e' ...
'' ("new prints") movement, whose artists depicted traditional subjects with a style influenced by . Like many earlier
ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...
prints, Hasui's works were commonly landscapes, but displayed atmospheric effects and natural lighting. Hasui designed almost one thousand woodblock prints over a career that spanned nearly forty years. Towards the end of his life the government recognized him as a Living National Treasure for his contribution to Japanese culture.


Life

Hasui was born in 1883. As a youth, he dreamed of an art career. His paternal uncle was
Kanagaki Robun was the pen name of (9 February 1829 – 8 November 1894), a Japanese author and journalist. Career Kanagaki Robun, the son of a fishmonger, was originally known for light fiction in the ''gesaku'' genre. He is said to have met painter K ...
(1829–94), a Japanese author and journalist, who produced the first
manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...
magazine. Hasui went to the school of the painter Aoyagi Bokusen as a young man. He sketched from nature, copied the masters' woodblock prints, and studied brush painting with Araki Kanyu. His parents had him take on the family rope and thread wholesaling business, but its bankruptcy when he was 26 led him to pursue art. He approached Kiyokata Kaburagi to teach him , but Kaburagi instead encouraged him to study , which he did with
Okada Saburōsuke was a Japanese painter in the Yōga style and a professor at the "Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō" (School of Fine Arts); precursor of the Tokyo University of the Arts. Biography His parents were vassals of the samurai Nabeshima clan. Kiyokata bestowed the name Hasui upon him, which can be translated as "water gushing from a spring", and derives from his elementary school combined with an ideogram of his family name. After seeing an exhibition of
Shinsui Itō Shinsui Itō (; 4 February 1898 – 8 May 1972) was the pseudonym of a ''Nihonga'' painter and ''ukiyo-e'' woodblock printing, woodblock print artist in Taishō period, Taishō- and Shōwa period, Shōwa-period Japan. He was one of the grea ...
's ''Eight Views of Lake Biwa'', Hasui approached Shinsui's publisher
Shōzaburō Watanabe was a Japanese print publisher and the driving force behind one of the Woodblock printing in Japan, woodblock printmaking movements known as ''shin-hanga'' ("new prints"). Biography He started his career working for the export company of , whi ...
, who had him design three experimental prints that Watanabe published in August 1918. The series ''Twelve Scenes of Tokyo'', ''Eight Views of the Southeast'', and the first ''Souvenirs of Travel'' of 16 prints followed in 1919, each issued two prints at a time. Hasui's twelve-print ''A Collection of Scenes of Japan'' begun in 1922 went unfinished when the
1923 Great Kantō earthquake The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (, or ) was a major earthquake that struck the Kantō Plain on the main Japanese island of Honshu at 11:58:32 JST (02:58:32 UTC) on Saturday, 1 September 1923. It had an approximate magnitude of 8.0 on the mom ...
destroyed Watanabe's workshop, including the finished woodblocks for the yet-undistributed prints and Hasui's sketchbooks. He lost 188 sketchbooks in which he had drawn landscapes and other subjects. He travelled the Hokuriku, San'in, and
San'yō region The San'yō Region (山陽地方 ''San'yō-chihō'') is an area in the south of Honshū, the main island of Japan. It consists of the southern part of the Chūgoku region, facing the Seto Inland Sea. The name ''San'yō'' means "southern, sunny ( ...
s later in 1923 and upon his return in February 1924 developed his sketches into his third ''Souvenirs of Travel'' series. His sketching trip at this time lasted 102 days, the longest trip of his life. Many of the sketches he made on this trip became the basis for many of his later works. After this trip, the vividness of his colors and the realism of his work increased, and he gained further fame. From the series '' Twenty Views of Tōkyō'', ''Zōjō-ji Temple in Shiba'', published in 1925, became Hasui's best-selling work and many printmakers began to imitate his style. Hasui built a new house in Magome in 1930, and ''Moon at Magome'' from the series ''Twenty Views of Tōkyō'' sold that year became his second best-selling work. Hasui studied ''
ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...
'' and Japanese style painting at the studio of Kiyokata Kaburagi. He mainly concentrated on making watercolors of actors, everyday life and landscapes, many of them published as illustrations in books and magazines in the last few years of the
Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...
and early Taishō period. During the forty years of his artistic career, Hasui worked closely with Watanabe Shōzaburō, publisher and advocate of the ''shin-hanga'' movement. His works became widely known in the West through American connoisseur Robert O. Muller (1911–2003). Landscape prints were the most popular of the ''shin-hanga'', and their reputation in the United States reached its peak in the mid-1930s, when Hasui was considered the leading landscape printmaker. In 1956, he was named a Japanese Living National Treasure. The government Committee for the Preservation of Intangible Cultural Treasures had intended to honor traditional printmaking via awards to Hasui and
Ito Shinsui Ito, Itō or Itoh may refer to: Places * Ito Island, an island of Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea * Ito Airport, an airport in the Democratic Republic of the Congo * Ito District, Wakayama, a district located in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan ...
in 1953. Because the artists' work necessitated collaboration between designer, engraver, and printer, objections were raised over singling out individual participants for recognition. Therefore, they commissioned the artists to make new prints, the production of which was carefully documented. Hasui's biographer, Narazaki Munishige, was one of those who recorded the process. Thus, ''Snow at Zōjō-ji'' was completed in 1953, and the process of printing 42 times was recorded for posterity. Hasui died on November 27, 1957. He had created around 620 prints over the course of his career. In 1979 Narazaki published a biography and compiled the first
catalogue raisonné A (or critical catalogue) is an annotated listing of the works of an artist or group of artists and can contain all works or a selection of works categorised by different parameters such as medium or period. A ''catalogue raisonné'' is normal ...
. An exhibition of 180 of his prints was held in Tokyo in 1982. The catalogue was entitled: "Hasui Hasui: The End of the Line For Ukiyo-e".


Style

Hasui worked almost exclusively on landscape and townscape prints based on sketches and
watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...
s he made in Tokyo and during travels around Japan. However, his prints are not merely ''meisho'' (famous places) prints that are typical of earlier ''ukiyo-e'' masters such as
Hiroshige or , born Andō Tokutarō (; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series '' The Fifty-three Stations ...
and
Katsushika Hokusai , known mononymously as Hokusai, was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Edo period, active as a painter and printmaker. His woodblock print series '' Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'' includes the iconic print ''The Great Wave off Kanagawa''. Ho ...
(1760-1849). Hasui's prints feature locales that are tranquil and obscure in urbanizing Japan. In 1920, Hasui designed his first falling snow print. His snow scenes are among the most original and best of his works. He later recalled "In my earlier works there are novel expressions in carving line and forms: the artisans used to complain." He said of the relationship between designer and printer: Hasui considered himself a realist and employed his training in ''yōga'' in his compositions. Like Hiroshige he made travel and landscape prints, though his subjects were less known locations rendered with naturalistic light, shade, and texture, without the captions and titles that were standard in prints of Hiroshige's age. Hasui left a large body of woodblock prints and watercolors: many of the watercolors are linked to the woodblock prints. He also produced oil paintings, traditional hanging scrolls and a few ''
byōbu are Japanese folding screens made from several joined panels, bearing decorative painting and calligraphy, used to separate interiors and enclose private spaces, among other uses. History are originated in Han dynasty China and are tho ...
'' (folding screens).


Gallery

Tabi miyage dai nishū, Uji Byōdō-in no ichibu by Kawase Hasui.jpg, ''Part of the
Byōdō-in is a Buddhist temple in the city of Uji in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, built in the late Heian period. It is jointly a temple of the Jōdo-shū (Pure Land) and Tendai-shū (Heavenly Level) sects. History This temple was originally built ...
Temple at Uji'', 1921 Tabi miyage dai nishū, Ojiya Asahi-bashi by Kawase Hasui.jpg, ''Asahi Bridge in Ojiya'', 1921 NDL-DC 2586549-13 Kawase Hasui T15 crd.jpg, ''Kojaku Cavern,
Oga Peninsula The Oga Peninsula (男鹿半島 ''Oga-hantō'') is a rugged peninsula which projects west into the Sea of Japan from the coast of Akita in northern Honshū, the main island of Japan. Politically it coincides with the city A city is a human s ...
'', 1926 The Pond at Benten Shrine in Shiba, Kawase Hasui, MFAB 50.2885.jpg, ''Pond at Benten Shrine in Shiba'', 1929 NDL-DC 2586549-31 Kawase Hasui S05 crd.jpg, ''Moon at Magome'', 1930 Nikko kaido hasui kawase.jpg, ''
Nikkō Kaidō The was one of the centrally administered Edo Five Routes, five routes of the Edo period. It was built to connect the ''de facto'' capital of Japan at Edo (modern-day Tokyo) with the temple-shrine complex of the Mangan-ji and Tōshōsha (now cal ...
'', 1930 Kawase Hasui (1931) Snow in Mukojima.jpg, ''Snow in Mukojima'', 1931 Hasui Kawase, Shinagawa, 川瀬巴水, 品川.jpg, ''
Shinagawa is a special ward in the Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. The Ward refers to itself as Shinagawa City in English. The Ward is home to ten embassies. , the Ward had an estimated population of 380,293 and a population density of 16,510 persons per ...
'', 1931 NDL-DC 2586549-40 Kawase Hasui S06 crd.jpg, '' Meguro Fudō Temple'', 1931/1935 NDL-DC 2586550-50 Kawase Hasui S0806 crd.jpg, ''Autumn at
Oirase is a town located in Aomori Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 25,225 in 10789 households, and a population density of 350 persons per km². The total area of the town is . Geography Oirase is located on the eastern coa ...
'', 1933/1935 NDL-DC 2586550-74 Kawase Hasui S0812 crd.jpg, '' Hoshi Hot Spring in Jōshū'', 1933/1935 NDL-DC 2586550-58 Kawase Hasui S0807 crd.jpg, ''Nenokuchi
Lake Towada is the largest Volcanic crater lake, crater lake in Honshū island, Japan. Located on the border between Aomori Prefecture, Aomori and Akita Prefecture, Akita prefectures, it lies 400 meters (1,800 ft) above sea level and is 327 m ...
'', 1933/1935 Hasui Kawase, Evening at Tagonoura, 川瀬巴水, 田子の浦の夕.jpg, ''Evening at Tagonoura'', 1940 Heirin-ji, Nobidome, Hasui Kawase, 野火止 平林寺, 川瀬巴水.jpg, '' Heirin-ji, Nobidome'', 1952


Important series and works

* '' Twelve Scenes of Tokyo'' (1919–1921) * ''Souvenirs of Travel'', Vol. I (1919–1920) Vol. II (1921) Vol. III (1924–1929) * ''The Mitsubishi Villa in Fukagawa (1920) * '' Selected Views of Japan'' (1922–1926) * '' Twenty Views of Tokyo'' (1925–1930) * ''New Eight Views of Japan'' (1927) * ''Selected Views of the Tokaido Road'' (1931–1947) * ''Collected Views of Japan, Eastern Japan'' (1932–1936) * ''Collected Views of Japan II, Kansai'' (1933–1943) * ''Collected Views of Kennan Mountain Villa in Moto-Hakone'' (1935) * ''One-hundred Views of New Tokyo'' (1936) * ''Shinto and Its Architecture'' (1936) * ''Eight Views of Korea'' (1939) * ''Pacific Transport Lines'' (1952) * ''Snow at Zōjō-ji'' (1953) * ''Hall of the Golden Hue, Hiraizumi'' (1957; Kawase's final work) About dating of the prints: Many of them are reprinted 1960 after Kawase's death. (In Japan, it is unusual to number the prints, e.g. "5th of 100".)


Works in museums

Hasui Kawase's works are currently kept in several museums worldwide, including the
British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
, the
Toledo Museum of Art The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio. It houses a collection of more than 30,000 objects. With 45 galleries, it covers 280,000 square feet and is currently in th ...
, the
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
, the
Indianapolis Museum of Art The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) is an encyclopedic art museum located at Newfields, a campus that also houses Lilly House, The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park, the Garden at Newfields and more. It is located at the corner of No ...
, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...
, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, the
Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum (PAM) is an art museum in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. The Portland Art Museum has 240,000 square feet (22,000 m2), with more than 112,000 square feet (10,400 m2) of gallery space. The museum’s permanent c ...
, the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...
, the
University of Michigan Museum of Art The University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) is one of the largest university art museums in the United States, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with . Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alu ...
, the
Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the List of largest art museums, largest ar ...
, the Stanley Museum of Art, the
Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum is a public art museum located in the Mount Vernon, Baltimore, Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded and opened in 1934, it holds collections from the mid-19th century that were amassed substantially ...
, the
Clark Art Institute The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, commonly referred to as the Clark, is an art museum and research institution located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. Its collection consists of European ...
, the
Smart Museum of Art The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The permanent collection has over 17,000 objects. Admission is free and open to the public. The Smart Museum and ...
, the
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art gallery, art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of A ...
, and the
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the supp ...
.


References


Works cited

* *


Further reading

*Brown, Kendall and Newland, Amy Reigle. ''Kawase Hasui: the Complete Woodblock Prints''. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2003. *Brown, Kendall. ''Water and Shadow: Kawase Hasui and Japanese Landscape Prints''. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2014. *Muneshige, Narazaki. ''Kawase Hasui mokuhanga shu''. Tokyo: Mainichi shinbunsha, 1979.


External links


Catalogue of Hasui Kawase prints
Approximately 950 woodblock prints
Kawase Hasui, Prints & Biography
The Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints

Robin Devereux
Ayumi Ohashi Reprinting Hasui's ''Lake Kawaguchi''
Video by David Bull (23 mins)
"Collecting Hasui: a Conversation with René and Carolyn Balcer"
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the supp ...
(16 mins)
ArtelinoKawase Hasui's works at Los Angeles County Museum of Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kawase, Hasui 1883 births 1957 deaths Artists from Tokyo Living National Treasures of Japan People from Minato, Tokyo Shin hanga artists 20th-century Japanese printmakers Japanese landscape artists 20th-century Japanese artists 20th-century Japanese people